Infidelity and Green Arrow

One of the fascinating things about comic books, especially when it comes to characters with the long history that the likes of Marvel and DC boast, is the fact that there are a lot of stories people have never heard of. Or maybe they just know something happened but don’t know all the details surrounding that situation.

An example that certainly follows the latter is the case of Oliver Queen, commonly known as his superhero persona, Green Arrow, and his rocky relationship with Dinah Lance, usually known as the Black Canary. They are each other’s quintessential love. They have been together for most of the last five decades with their ups and downs, often becoming the symbolic flawed relationship of DC Comics, with them constantly fighting or arguing. While most of those cases were done for comedic purposes, there are exceptions to the rule.

Today we will talk about one of those stories, which was when Green Arrow cheated on Black Canary.

In the early 2000s, the character of Oliver Queen was brought back to life by the hand of different writers, such as Kevin Smith, Brad Meltzer, and the author of this story, Judd Winick. The idea was to establish Oliver again as DC Universe’s main Green Arrow after his death in the mid-90s. The new writers also brought Green Arrow back to his classic heroic roots, stirring away from the gritty, more violent approach that writer-artist Mike Grell did in his legendary 80s run with the character.

And weirdly enough, Winick took the character of Green Arrow and decided to have him cheat on Dinah in the storyline Straight Shooters, which covers from issue #26 to issue #32. He is a fine writer and would go on to write the character for five years, but this is perhaps the most controversial storyline that he did. For a good reason: it showed Oliver completely breaking the sanctity of his relationship with Dinah.

The story starts with one of Oliver’s longtime allies and friends, Black Lightning, coming to him to ask about the possibility of financing his niece. She is a lawyer working on a big case against a very important company. Her name is Joanna, and she is introduced to Oliver in the early stages of the issue.

As you can imagine, Joanna and Oliver start to work together and become quite fond of each other in the process, which leads to what you might be thinking about right now. And in one scene, where they are at Ollie’s place, we see the latter’s protégé, Mia Deardon, clearly disapproves of what is going on between them. Only then does Oliver starts to feel remorseful, although that doesn’t stop him.

Eventually, the story progresses, and there is one scene where Oliver comes late at night to visit Joanna to discuss several issues about their stand against this big company. One thing leads to another until they find themselves together in bed. And a few hours later, Oliver tells Dinah not to visit him as he naturally feels incredibly guilty about what he has done. The story continues and naturally finds its conclusion on issue #32.

As you can imagine, Straight Shooter was controversial. It showed Oliver cheating on Dinah, which wasn’t very common in superhero comic books, at least regarding the main character. Judd Winick has stated throughout the years that he always liked how human Oliver was, and he wanted to reflect that in his stories, so one cannot deny his logic that this act, although wrong, was a profound sample of humanity.

Comic books are often based around continuity and maintaining a certain degree of consistency with the character–or at least that was the case in the industry’s heyday. And this type of decision can often be detrimental to the character as you can have fans not liking the idea of a superhero, arguably the kind of character that could be viewed as a role model, cheating on his loved one.

Green Arrow’s character has certainly been pushed throughout the years. When Mike Grell took the character and started his long run with the Longbow Hunters miniseries, he did so by having Oliver kill a man. Killing would become a common trait of Green Arrows in the regular series, along with taking a much more urban feel, almost detached from the rest of the DC Universe.

Was this a bad move? I guess it depends on your taste, of course, but the reality is that Grell’s run certainly was very different within the Green Arrow canon and sold well. Moreover, it lasted a long time, something not many runs involving this character say. And the same could be argued with the cheating situation done by Winick; it wasn’t pleasant, but it served to showcase the character’s flaws and the volatile nature of his relationship with Dinah, which always seems to be at the edge of falling apart. But yeah, this is where Oliver got his reputation as a cheater. So, as you can see, some things just stick.

Overall, this was a good story, well-written and with great art, so regardless of your stand on the topic, I think you should give it a shot. But I think it makes a lot of sense that people have an issue with this storyline: if you do something daring and new with the character, you need to understand that not everybody will like it–you are bound to upset someone.

Let me know your thoughts.